Very rare German 18K gold open faced lever watch Circa 1900

Gold anker chronometer by Ferdinand Dencker
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A very rare German 18 carat gold open faced anker chronometer, circa 1900. Bridge movement, a moustache lever escapement, wolf tooth winding wheels, ratchet with long counter pressure spring, Breguet hairspring and screw compensation balance. White enamel dial with Roman hours, an outer minute track, subsidiary seconds at 6 o’clock and spade & whip hands. A plain case. Cuvette signed and numbered, movement and case numbered.
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Diameter: 50 mm
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Weight: 94 g
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Signed: F. Dencker Hamburg
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The gold hallmarks in the case and the design of the movement with wolf tooth winding wheels, a ratchet with long counter pressure spring, a moustache compensating lever and Breguet hairspring indicate that this pocket watch was made in Switzerland. Dencker worked with the Swiss companies J.J. Badollet and C.H. Meylan from Le Brassus, from whom he obtained movements and cases.
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German chronometer maker Ferdinand Dencker was born in 1837 in Lütjenburg, Schleswig-Holstein. In 1866, he settled in Hamburg as a chronometer maker and opened a workshop there for the production of marine chronometers and precision pendulum clocks. Denker worked on minimizing the so-called secondary compensation error. Around 1870, there was a brief collaboration with the chronometer maker Theodor Knoblich. He also worked with the Swiss Jean Moïse Badollet and Charles Henri Meylan from Le Brassus, from whom he sourced movements and cases.

Between 1903 and 1905, he successfully took part in the competition tests of the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg with marine chronometers and was appointed several times as an expert at the Naval Observatory.

On October 6th, 1905, he founded Hamburger Chronometerwerke GmbH with six shipowners from Hamburg and Bremen, based at Neue Gröninger Straße 22-24. He was initially the managing director and thus the controller responsible. The aim was an annual production of 240 chronometers and 500 deck watches, for which he also hired Walter Prell. At the end of 1907, disagreements arose between Dencker and the other shareholders of Hamburger Chronometerwerke GmbH. As a result, Dencker left in 1908 and William Maier took over his position. The fact is that the specified number of 240 chronometers per year was never reached. Perhaps, however, Dencker deliberately gambled heavily when founding the company.

At the trade exhibition in Berlin, Dencker exhibited various marine chronometers, also the model of a secondary compensation device invented by him and his seconds pendulum clocks, among others, with a free escapement and working in a vacuum, without gear train and without oil. Dencker also supplied the standard clock for the Royal Geodetic Institute in Potsdam. Since then, he has concentrated on his own production again and managed it until his death in 1917.